so I am sick

not like I have a fever or nausea sick, just I have a million tissues littered around my room and I keep hacking up strange substances kind of sick.  I'm guessing it has something to do with the season?  I've been sucking down orange juice, oranges, water and inhaling nasal spray like there's no tomorrow.


Anyway I'm bothering to waste your time with this update dear reader, is that Klaus, Astrid's husband, on finding out that I was sick recommended a hilariously German solution:

"Du sollst heißes Bier trinken John" which translates to "You should drink hot beer John"




You see in Germany beer is apparently used for everything, even curing colds or allergies or whatever it is that I have.  He said that for it to really work, I needed to boil the beer until it got really hot, then cover myself with two very thick blankets and drink it right before I went to sleep.  Allowing myself to sweat a bunch in the process. 




Let me just stop this right now before I go any further and say for anyone who might want to try this after reading the above description, that this absolutely did not work.  Either because I did it wrong or because the solution itself is really stupid.  I woke up feeling no better than the previous night though I didn't feel any worse.




Anyway back to the narrative




So I picked up a Heineken from the case of generic European beers that Klaus gave me for Christmas, because he told me to use a bad beer.  I was going to use the Spanish stuff, but I opted for neutral tasting piss over actual piss.  Also Heineken comes in slightly smaller bottles, which meant less beer would be wasted. 


I set the beer to boil and went to go prepare for bed.  I took out my contacts and brushed me teeth and talked briefly with my roommate Rachid, figuring the beer would need time to boil properly.  I grossly overestimated the amount of time necessary to boil ,25 L of beer and when I got back the beer was way hotter than it needed to be.  I managed to save most of it and pour it into one of my Glühwein mugs. 


Now if you've ever had Heineken you know it to be nothing special in terms of taste.  If you're looking for a Dutch beer you should always pick a Grolsch.  The reason being that Heineken has no flavor whatsoever.  I had expected the hot variety of Heineken to be bad, but I thought at least it would retain some beer flavor.  I was wrong.

What I managed to choke down before going to bed was probably one of the worst concoctions I've ever tasted in my life.  Imagine boiling grass for a couple of hours and then throwing only enough salt to make you uncomfortable into it.  It was gross.

Now I'm not sure if I was supposed to drink all of it in one go, or if sipping was ok.  In any case I couldn't swallow more than a little at a time (it was really hot!) and by the end of swallow 4 or 5 I had had enough.  I quickly poured what was left down my throat, grimacing as I did so, and immediately settled in under my thick blanket.  I expected to start sweating immediately, but I did not.  Roughly 20-30 minutes went by before I realized that the whole thing was bullshit.  If the whole goal was for me to sweat out the sickness (not really the best treatment anyway) couldn't I have just had some decaffeinated tea or hot chocolate?


Anyway I had a better ending for this, but now I've forgotten it.  I'll try and post some pictures later, but that probably won't happen.